GAZA CITY, 9 June 2005 — Israel launched an airstrike targeting Hamas activists in Gaza yesterday as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Tel Aviv to reopen Gaza’s airport and set up a “safe passage”, which enables free movement of people and goods, between the territory and the West Bank after the pullout.
Abbas arrived here for talks aimed at preventing a fragile truce from fracturing, and he appealed for calm from all sides, while also condemning the Israeli airstrike.
“This raid cannot be justified as it sabotages the calm,” he said on his arrival here to meet Hamas and other factions for talks about “our national interests.”
Four Hamas followers escaped unharmed when an unmanned drone fired two rockets on a car near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, with witnesses saying that they had fled seconds before one slammed into the vehicle.
Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had declared an end to hostilities at a landmark summit in February. The recent spike in violence has prompted renewed calls from within the Israeli government to postpone the planned pullout from Gaza Strip that is due to start in mid-August.
Health Minister Danny Naveh said the pullout could not take place until the likes of Hamas had joined the peace efforts and that Israel should stop holding back on large-scale military operations just to please Abbas. But Sharon insisted there were no grounds whatsoever to delay the withdrawal that has caused major ructions within his main governing Likud party.
“There are those who hope that the disengagement will not be carried out. I want to say unequivocally that it will be carried out on schedule,” Sharon told the Israeli ministerial commission tasked with planning the pullout.
Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, leader of the Labor party and a member of the committee planning for the pullout, said “final decisions need to be made right away”.
For his part, Abbas urged Israel to sanction the reopening of Gaza’s airport and a “safe passage” to and from Gaza and the West Bank, after the pullout. He made the appeal during talks with James Wolfensohn, the Middle East diplomatic quartet’s special envoy for Israel’s disengagement project.
Visiting British Foreign Secretary Straw, whose country is due to take over the revolving presidency of the European Union later this year, said London would do “everything” in its power to make a success out of the Gaza pullout.
Hamas had hoped that a strong showing in the ballot would secure its entry into the political mainstream. Straw however denied that electoral success for Hamas would see it removed from a terror blacklist. Like the rest of the EU and the United States, Britain does not officially sanction talks with Hamas.
In northern Israel, some 900 Palestinian prisoners went on hunger strike to protest against the alleged desecration of the Qur’an inside Israeli jails, allegations flatly denied by the Jewish state.
“They refused breakfast this morning and have also decided to boycott family and prison administration visits,” said Issa Qaraqaeh, director of Palestinian prisoners’ rights group, the Prisoners Club. The Israeli prison services confirmed that security detainees in Megiddo had left their breakfast trays untouched.
— With input from agencies
